"Friday, November 8, while international attention was
fixed on the UN Security Council vote by 15 to nothing in favor of the US-UK-Ireland
ultimatum to Iraq to disarm, US aircraft dropped hundreds of thousands of
leaflets over Iraqi troop concentrations that are building up in southwest
Iraq, calling on them not to fire on US and British forces. The leaflets fluttered
down over a 250-mile strip running close to the Iranian border from the big
Iraqi land and air base at Al Kut, 135 miles southeast of Baghdad in the north,
to the Shatt al Arb port city of Basra, Iraqs only outlet to the Persian
Gulf, in the south.

In Baghdads first comment on the UN vote Saturday, November
9, Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri praised the UN Security Council for thwarting
US plans to attack Iraq, clearly disregarding events on the ground. He promised
a detailed response would be forthcoming within days.

DEBKAfiles military sources report the American leaflets
targeted two major Iraqi military concentrations in particular - one divided
between at Al Halafyah, 22 miles east of Al Amarah - roughly 25 miles west
of the Iranian frontier, and Musallan, 12 miles north of Al Amarah; the other
Iraqi deployment guards the strategic town of Al Qurnah, 50 miles north of
Basra, and Al Muzayriah, 10 miles south of Al Qurnah, at the point where the
Euphrates flows into the Tigris.

In Washington, George W. Bush could hardly wait for the Security
Council to finish voting before issuing a grave warning to Saddam Hussein
that his cooperation must be prompt and unconditional or he will face
the severest consequences.

The distribution of those leaflets was pre-planned, DEBKAfiles
military sources report exclusively, to coincide with the Security Council
vote and the Bush warning, as a strong signal that, regardless of UN Security
Council Resolution 1410, the fate of Iraq would be determined on the ground,
not in the conference chamber.

According to our sources, US-UK and Iraqi forces have been locked
for two weeks in the most extensive engagement of the campaign thus for the
capture of the entire region from Ali Gharbi in the north up to Al Qurnah
in the south. Fighting alongside American and British special forces are elements
of Iranian Revolutionary Guards special and intelligence units. They face
on the Iraqi side elite units of the Babel and Republican Guard divisions,
as well as contingents of the Saddam Martyrs Brigades, made up of fighting
men from Saddams own Tikrit tribe. They include paratroop and naval
commandos and units armed with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Fridays
UN resolution went into immediate effect, giving Baghdad until November 15
to accept UN arms inspectors with broad new powers to go anywhere at any time,
backed by the threat of force. Iraq is ordered to declare any illicit weapons
programs by December 8.

The inspectors efforts will focus on exposing any biological
or chemical weapons, while the atomic energy agency searches for signs of
a renewed nuclear program. Their report will be handed in 60 days hence.

The blueprint leaves it up to the inspectors to decide what
constitutes a violation. Chief UN inspector Hans Blix said an advance team
would reach Baghdad on November 18, ready to begin work by December 23. The
team is authorized to conduct surprise inspections anywhere in Iraq, including
Saddams presidential sites and conduct private interviews with any Iraqi
citizen.

At the last minute, Syria in a surprise reversal made the vote
unanimous. Russia, France and China jointly interpreted the resolution as
excluding any automatic use of force.

While this diplomatic point was made in New York, American and
British forces are fully occupied in southern Iraq and have been there since
early September  as disclosed previously by the military sources of
DEBKA-Net-Weekly (Issue 77, Sep. 20) and DEBKAfile.